Hustler Casino

Lately, I’ve been dry with my tournaments. I can’t even win a satellite to the tournament.

After one of my disappointing showings at the Bike, I decided to return to Hustler for some cash game action. The $300-$500 tables were full so I sat down at a $100-$300 with $200 to start. Literally, my very first hand was A [diamonds] 2 [diamonds] so I call the $5 blind. The flop is 3, 4, 5 all diamonds. Yes, I flopped a straight flush wheel. To make a long story short, a guy that flopped 2 pair paid me off.

Soon after, a spot opens up for me at the $300-$500 table and I move over. When I get there, I see that there’s a lady with about $4,500 in $5 chips. WTF?! I asked the guy next to me what’s going on and he tells me that she’s been super lucky hitting everything and everybody at the table is paying her off.

I watch her play for a while to see what she’s doing. It was obvious that she was a novice player that played ABC poker and just have been super lucky. She was very obvious about her hands and didn’t really try to hide her strong hands at all, and when she was weak, she would make faces and noise. I also saw that she would call you down with any pair. She just didn’t like getting bluffed off her hand. Once, when I was raising pre-flop with a good hand, she said, “Whatever you bet, I’m gonna call you.” I was originally going to bet $30, but when she said that, I decided to push it to $50 and sure enough she called me. After the flop, she just check folded and I made a little more than I would have.

The problem with playing against a non-bluffable player is that you have to wait for a hand. And sometimes, you just never get one.

Fortunately for me on this night, I woke up with pocket queens, raised, and got called by her and another guy. The flop was Q-10-10. A great flop but it’s hard to get any action when you flop this big. The guy on my right was first to act and he comes out betting $150. Huh? Is he just trying to steal or does he really have something? Since the lady was to my left, I just flat call, and she flat calls.

At this point, I’m a little confused as to what she has. There are 2 diamonds but she is not the type of player to call with a draw. The turn is an ace. I’m hoping somebody has an ace and it makes them stronger. The guy bets out $250. I pretend to think, then call. Now the lady makes a lot of noise and calls. At this point, I’m putting the guy on a 10. I still don’t know what she has.

The river is a King. The flush doesn’t come. The guy checks now. Maybe he’s scared of the 4 card straight on the board. I go all-in for about $300. The lady stands up and makes a bunch of noise then calls. Then the guy goes all-in for $800 for another $500 on top of my bet. Hmmm. Now, I’m hoping he doesn’t have pocket 10s.

After not much thought, the unbluffable lady calls the $500 for the side pot. She has 9-10 (for just trips) and he has 10-Jack for a river straight. He wins the $1000 side pot and I take down the big main pot. Nice.

Soon after this hand, I get pocket Kings and raise and the same 2 people call me. This time, the flop is A-K-J rainbow. Even though I flopped a set, I’m not super happy about this flop. The guy checks, I bet $150, the lady folds, and the guy calls.

The turn is a Jack. Nice. Now I feel a lot better about my hand. The guy checks again. This time, I bet $250 and he calls.

The river is a blank. I’m hoping he made something, but he checks. At this point, I don’t think I can get much more from this guy so I make a big $500 bet to make it look like a bluff. He thinks for a while and calls and I take down another huge pot. He claimed to have flopped a straight but he didn’t show.

After that, I call it a night feeling pretty good. I didn’t make any tricky plays but it’s always nice to get paid off with your big hands.

After taking a break from poker, I came back to the Hustler Casino to play again. There was a aggressive loose player one seat over to my left who was raising every other hand pre-flop to $40. It made it very hard to limp in but I didn’t mind because I knew he would spew some chips my way eventually.

After about few hands, every time he would raise, I would say, “Raise again?” just to let him know I was aware of what he was doing. This did not deter him at all. In fact, it might have actually caused him to do it more.

Finally, when I was on the button (and he was the big blind), I said, “You’ve been talking everybody’s blinds so I’m going to raise and take yours.” He replied, “No you’re not.” I just wanted to mix things up and raise before it got to him to raise.

However, when it was my turn and I looked at my cards, I found pocket rockets. Nice. I raised to $30 as I had told him I would do. He called immediately and 2 others also limp called after him.

The flop was Jack, 10, blank rainbow. Everyone checked to me and I bet out around the size of the pot and the big blind was the only caller. The turn was a 7 and he checked. I felt that he probably had a 10 so I said, “10 no good” and went all-in for around $400. The big blind thought for a bit and called.

The river was another Jack, which I didn’t really like, but managed to take down the pot.

The table had a good laugh about how the hand came down. But it put the big blind guy on tilt and he spewed off all his money in the next 30 minutes.

It’s always nice to get pocket rockets at the perfect time.

Once again, I returned to Hustler to try my hand at their tournament.  This time, it’s the Oktoberfest $500 buy-in no limit tournament, with 7,500 in starting chips, and 40 minute rounds.

This is the type of tournament structure that I like because it gives you plenty of time to make your moves, and you can make 2 or 3 small mistakes, or even 1 big mistake and still have enough chips to play.

Before the tournament, I decided my strategy was going to be to play a lot of pots and try to accumulate chips to push people around in the later rounds.

In the first round of play, I limped in with 6, 9 and 3 others were in the pot with me.  The flop was 9, 5, 3 rainbow.  One guy bet 200, and everyone folded to me and I just called with my 6 kicker.

The turn was the 8 which put the second diamond on the board, giving me top pair and now a flush draw.  The guy checks and I bet 350, now feeling better about my 6 kicker.  That lasted about a second because he check raises me to 1,350.

I had played long enough at the table to notice that this guy was pretty tight and didn’t look like a guy that would bluff this early in the tournament.  I wasn’t sure exactly where I was, but I felt pretty sure he wasn’t on a flush draw so my 9 high flush would be good if I hit it.

The river was the 3 giving me a flush.  However, the guy comes out betting 1,000.  Since I hit a back-door flush, I felt I could get some value out of raising and made it 3,000.  He thought it over for 3 seconds and called.  I showed my flush and he flips over pocket 8s for a full boat.

Whoops.  Crap.  I made 2 mistakes in one hand.  First, I should have raised on the flop and he would have probably folded.  Then on the river when the board paired 3s, I should have just called the 1,000.

This put me in a big hole but I wasn’t out yet.  Unfortunately, the same guy got pocket Kings when I got pocket Jacks, and I lost more chips.  Amazingly, I was able to get away from my pocket Jacks pre-flop so I didn’t lose all my remaining chips.

Eventually, I had to make a big bluff to try to get some chips and the move failed and I was out.

I’m not really sure if my original plan was a good one or not.  Perhaps playing 6, 9 suited got me in the trouble that I got into.  If I was playing tight, I would not have even played that hand.

In any case, I’m going to try again next Sunday for their $1,500 buy-in.  Wish me luck. I’ll need it.

In case you’re not familiar with the rewards program at the Hustler Casino, basically, they keep track of each hour of your play and you get points for rewards.  You can either get free food, a coupon for the in-casino store, or the Hustler Hollywood store.  Since the food is free at the $300+ tables, I never use my points.

Last year, for Christmas, I took all my Hustler Casino reward points (or whatever it’s called) and bought a bunch of presents at the Hustler Hollywood store.  But more recently, I’ve noticed signs and notices at the casino telling me that if I don’t use my points for 6 months, they go away.  Damn it.

They must have learned this trick from the airlines and cell phone companies.  Oh well.  No matter.  Since it’s half way into the year, I decided I’d better cash out my reward points before they expire.  I went to one of those kiosks and printed out my coupon for Hustler Hollywood.

By chance, they had their Hustler girl Hoodies on sale ($16 off regular price) so I decided to just load up on them and hold them until this coming Christmas.  That’s right boys and girls.  I’m doing my Christmas shopping in June.  Can you beat that?

During one tournament at the Hustler, early in the tournament, the guy to my left was a jokster type and when I was the small blind, said to me, “Let’s just limp in blind and check blind all the way.”  The blinds were still only 25-50 (I think) so I agreed.  No biggie.  2 people limped in and I called the big blind without looking at my cards.  The guy in the big blind checked without looking, and we both checked blind before the flop.

The flop was 4, 4, 5 with 2 clubs.  The other 2 guys also checked.  I blind checked the turn, as did the big blind guy.  The turn was a Queen.  The 2 guys also checked.  Me and the big blind once again blind checked the river.

The river was a small club, making a possible flush out there.  The first of the 2 guys checked.  Then the last guy bet 300 into a 200 pot.  Now, I tell the big blind guy that I have to look at my cards.  I take a peek and I have 4, 5.  I flopped a FULL HOUSE!

I think for a second, and I min raised to 600.  The big blind folds, and the other guy folds, and back to the original better.  He thinks for a bit and goes all in for about 5,000.  I insta-call and show my full house.  The guy rivered an Ace high club flush and decided to go crazy.

What a weird hand that turned out to be.  In hind sight, if I had looked at my hand, I don’t think the guy would have gone crazy like that.  I think the blind checking confused him when I finally came out raising him.  Whatever the reason, this influx of chips helped me get to 5th place in the tournament.

I’ve continued to play the deep stack tournament at Hustler on Sunday with no luck.  2 weeks ago, I was down to 2 tables and was all-in with about 48,000 chips with AJ against A7 and lost almost all my chips when the 7 hit on the flop.  If I had won that hand, I would have been in good position to win the tournament with about 80,000 chips.

Last week, I didn’t do as well and got knocked out half way.  Afterwards, I tried my luck at the $300-$500 no limit table.  In a span of about 30 minutes, I got pocket Kings, Aces, then Kings again.  On the first hand, there was a $10 live straddle and 4 callers to me in the big blind.  I wake up with the Kings and raised to $50.  That wasn’t enough because all 4 people called me.  Luckily, the flop was rainbow and low cards so I bet out $300 and took down the pot.

The very next hand, while the table is asking me if I stole that pot, I wake up with Aces.  I raise to $20 and I get 2 callers.  Once again, the flop is very safe and I bet $60 and take down the pot.  However, the lady in seat 2 comments that I’m running over the table.

Just a few hands later, there is a $20 raise from player 1 (in seat 1), a call from seat 3, and I again wake up with pocket Kings in the blind.  I raise to $60 and both players call.  The flop is 9, 10, Jack rainbow.  I hate this flop.  This is the type of flop that somebody trying to crack Aces would come in with, so I check.

Player 1 bets $80, and player 2 in seat 3 flat calls.  The way player 1 was talking told me he thought he had a strong hand.  If he has the nuts (King, Queen), I’m drawing almost dead and would need a Queen just to chop.  I also had no idea what player 2 called with.  Before the flop, there was about $180 in the pot.  Now, with $160 more in there, there’s $340.  I decide to flat call the $80 to see what comes next.  At the time, I didn’t know it, but the odds were 60% to 37% in his favor.

Cochinoman			Player 1

Flop				Turn	River

The turn is a very safe looking 4.  I once again check and player 1 immediately goes all in for $220.  player 2 folds after thinking a little, and it’s back to me.

At this point, I’m pretty sure I’m behind.  If player 1 has King, Queen, I’m drawing almost dead.  If he has something like Queen, Jack (top pair and open ended), I’m ahead.  But I didn’t think that’s what he had.  If he had top 2 (Jack, 10), I needed a King (for a set), Queen (for a straight), 9 (for a higher 2 pair), or a 4 (for a higher 2 pair).

If I knew exactly what he had, then I would know that at this point, player 1 is a 73% to 27% favorite.  The pot has $420 plus his $220 (total $640) and I need to call $220 (about 2.9 to 1).  So I’m getting the right odds to call here, assuming he has 2 pair.  But if he has a straight, I’m drawing to a Queen for a chop.  There’s so much money in the pot, after thinking for a while, I decide to gamble and call.

The board pairs another 4 on the river and player 1 declares he has 3 pairs.  That’s exactly what I wanted to hear (and not “Full House”) and I show my bigger 2 pair (Kings and 4s).  Player 1 can’t understand why I called the turn when he went all-in.  In hind sight, it was a good call but it wasn’t an easy call.

After this hand, 2 players leave and the table breaks and I get to leave with my nice winnings.

Hustler Casino exterior

What I liked about the WSOP main event was the deep stack of 20,000 in starting chips.  It really allows for some “real” play and not an all-in fest after 2 rounds.  Back in the day at Caribe, they used to have a 10,000 chip Sunday tournament which I loved and won a few times.

That’s also the reason why I’ve been going to the once a month Hawaiian Gardens deep stack tournament.  Once again, I went down there for their 2pm once a month, Saturday tournament.

This tournament starts you off with 3,000 in chips and the rounds are 30 minutes long.  I actually got up to about 31,000 in chips at one point, but managed to throw away most of my chips by slow playing pocket Kings.  What a disasterous miscalculation that was.  My mistake was not taking into account how tight of a player my opponent was.  There’s no need to slow play against a tight player.  Another expensive lesson for me.   But because I got up to such a large stack, I managed to hold on to make the final 2 tables and cash for the first time at this tournament.  I wasn’t happy with my play but at least I made money.  I’m going to try again next month.

The very next day (Sunday), I went to the Hustler deep stack tournament for the first time at 3pm.  This one starts you off with 5,000 in chips with 25 minute rounds.  Compared to the 3,000 chip tournament, this gave me lots of playing time.  I made 2 mistakes early on, and still managed to come back from less than 10 times the big blind back up to 16,000 in chips.  You can only do something like that in a deep stack tournament.  In one of those Commerce 1,500 chip tournaments, 1 mistake and you’re out.  I’m going to try again next week for sure.  I love the structure.

After the tournament, I tried my hand at the cash game there at the Hustler on the $300-$500 no limit table.  At this table, they give you free food so it’s as good as the Bike.  I doubled up on one hand with a flush, which gave me room to experiment.  One one hand, just for another $20 on the flop, I could have gotten runner-runner diamonds to make the nut flush against the winner (and chip leader) who had the King high flush.  I’m pretty damn sure he would have called all in for $1,000 on the river. Woulda-coulda-shoulda.  Oh well.

After more than doubling, I had already decided to play just before my big blind and got pocket Aces.  I hate it when this happens because I’ve had bad luck getting big hands right before leaving several times.  I was in late position so I didn’t try to do any stupid limping like on Saturday.  However, when I made a raise, 5 people called me out of position.  Crap.  That’s waaaay too many callers for pocket rockets.

The flop is Jack high with no flush draw but with a straight draw.  It was checked all the way back to me, so I came out really hard and bet more than the big pot that was there.  I managed to get everyone to fold except the last guy who flat called me.  I was hoping he had Ace-Jack which would make him drawing to 2 cards.  I bet again on the turn and he again check called.  On the river, he checked again and I decided to wimp out and check behind him.  He showed Jack 8 off.  WTF?!  Jack with an 8 kicker??  Damn!  I’m lucky he didn’t hit his kicker because I would have never thought he had an 8 kicker.  Even a 10 kicker would have surprised me with all the money going in there.

Well, that was a great way to end my day with pocket Aces holding up.  For once, I made enough money to leave early, instead of staying all night to try to break even.  I need to come back here for some more live action.

Hustler Casino
1000 W Redondo Beach Blvd.
Gardena, CA 90241
(877) 968-9800
(310) 719-9800
hustlercasinola.com
Map

Hustler Casino now has one of those computerized poker tables called “Fastdeal Poker.”

For now, it’s a $25 (or $60 or $100) Sit-N-Go table with 10 players.  Here’s how it works.  First, you need to get one of these Fastdeal cards (see photo) by going to a kiosk next to the lower limit waiting list.

It’s a touch screen kiosk where you enter your name (or any name), your birthdate and a PIN, then put cash into the machine to load up your card.  The kiosk will then print out your name on the card and it pops out of the machine.

Now, you take the card to the computerized table and sit down at one of the 10 seats.  You then swipe your card into the machine and it reads your info and your name comes up on the main large screen at that seat position.  I wanted to take a picture of the table but they wouldn’t let me.

At first, I tried touching the screen with my fingers and it did not work properly.  One of the other players told me to use my card instead and that worked better.  Funny how the kiosk touch screen worked fine with my fingers but not this one at the table.  They should have asked Apple to let them use the iPhone touch screen.

You are given 1,000 chips and I think the blinds started at 25-25, but it may have been 25-50.  The blinds go up every 8 minutes and because most of the players are still trying to figure out how to use the machine, the blinds go up really fast.  I got lucky and doubled up right away on my flush draw.

One of my biggest complaints is the tiny dealer button is hard to find sometimes.  I don’t see why it couldn’t be bigger and even blinking or something.  At least put it closer to the center instead of against the edge.  Also, the table was so high, I could barely see the screen properly.  The next weird thing is, after 2 players are all-in, all the cards come out instantaneously and the results (who won, lost) are shown in less than a second.  Even online poker games don’t do this.

Now, I realize this is called “Fastdeal,” but come now.  Couldn’t we at least enjoy our last moments in the game with some excitement of having a flush draw on the turn?  It was so fast, I didn’t even have time to see what my opponents hand was before it told me I won.  Obviously, the people who wrote this code have never written a good game on any platform or PC.  In fact, with my background, I think I have the expertise to say that whoever designed the user interface was a borderline moron.

By the way, before we started playing, there was a glitch with one of the players screens and they had to reboot the computer.  Each screen (including the main screen in the middle of the table) showed a BIOS screen, followed by a Windows XP screen booting.  That explains why they had to reboot the darned thing.  I’m surprised we didn’t get the blue screen of death in the middle of the game.   I don’t see why they need XP just to run a multi-user game.  I think this whole thing could run on MSDOS or even straight from ROM.

One thing I noticed was that the rebooting process was being controled from off-site.  The floor-lady was talking to somebody on her cell phone and they were doing the rebooting via the Internet.  I’m sure they’re one hacker away from some rigged game coming down on them.

Anyway, once it got to heads-up, suddenly, the game went into slow mode and once we were all-in, would show the turn and river as slow as on some TV shows.  Very strange.  It was so slow, we were joking that maybe it crashed and needed to be rebooted again.  If they’re going to do it this way, why not show the win percentages like on TV?  That would be at least somewhat interesting and something that we don’t get on regular tables.

Well, I managed to win 1st, which was $126 because the one girl wasn’t able to play and the other guy got 2nd, which was $50 something.  I don’t think the whole thing even took 30 minutes.  I’m not sure.  Of course, that’s not including the 3 times of rebooting which may have been like 45 minutes.  After you win, you return to the kiosk and login to your account and follow the instructions to get a printout which you take to the cage to cash.  No ID required.

Between the reboot, bad touch screen, hard to see button, and no exciting turn and river dealing, I don’t see this version of the hardware or software taking over anything anytime soon.  The dealers at the club have nothing to worry about yet.

I know that Commerce also has live games and Sit-N-Go video tables so I’m going to check those out next.  I hope they’re better than this one.